


For Where We Are Is Hell

by darkandstormyslash



Category: Taboo (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Crossdressing, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, UST, Unrequited Crush, period-typical internalised homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 03:12:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9529265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkandstormyslash/pseuds/darkandstormyslash
Summary: Set after James and Godfrey's meeting in episode 4. Godfrey contemplates James's actions and his own damnation. Angst, self-loathing, and unrequited love all over the place.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a quote from Doctor Faustus:  
> "Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed  
> In one self place, for where we are is hell,  
> And where hell is must we ever be."

Godfrey stays sat on the bed after James leaves, tears still stinging at his eyes, wishing he could just get through one visit with the man without bursting into tears. Around him, he can hear the work of the Molly House going on; murmured conversation, knocks of furniture against the walls, the occasional squeal or shriek. 

Eventually he reaches up and swipes angrily under his eyes. He didn't wear makeup knowing Delaney would be coming, because tear-tracks in white powder are even more embarrassingly conspicuous than just red-rimmed eyes.

God he's fucked.

Gently he lies back into the hollow left behind by James's body. It feels warm and solid and still smells of James - still  _feels_ like James; musty and damp and grimy with dirt and sweat. Godfrey scuffs his little velvet slippers into the muddy tracks left by James's boots and gives a shuddering sigh, letting his eyes fall closed.

He's pretty sure this is going to kill him. 

James's last words are still stinging in his ears. Half a man; as if Delaney wasn't half a man himself. Except Delaney's other half is monster while Godfrey's other half...

He gently lifts his hand and lays it on top of his skirts, just where the bulge between his legs presses up against the pretense of being a lady. He wonders if it would be better or worse if he _was_ a woman. Would James want him then? But then again, as a woman he would never have met James. He doesn't want to  _be_ a lady, though he knows plenty of men who do. He wants to be Godfrey, wearing a gorgeous silk dress and being swept off his feet and onto a white charger by the mysterious, handsome James Delaney.

And Delaney knows that,  _damn him_.

Delaney had poured him a drink, lay on his bed, pushed apart his legs. Godfrey knows, he _knows_ that if James had asked, or even indicated, he would've been up on James's lap without a second thought. James has his balls trapped in a vice; not just one way but two. James could destroy his life with a word, one of those anonymous notes that he seems to be particularly good at sending, which wouldn't just loose Godfrey his job but probably dangle him from the gallows as well.

That should be enough, that should be more than enough. The threat of his livelihood and life. But somehow it isn't enough for James Delaney; James has to yank at his heart as well, drag up all those horrible desperate sinful feelings that live inside of him. Godfrey gives a little groan and flops his other hand over his eyes. It isn't  _just_ sin, though. When he sees James Delaney spread out on his bed, scarred and broken, part of Godfrey wants to look after him. To wash him gently, get him some food, give the man a few seconds peace in his whirling life of dangerous self-destruction.

It's not just for his own sake that he wants James to stop this madness. It should be, lord knows it should be. If James gives up then he gets to stop this horrible triple life he's now leading; as a clerk, as a molly, as an informer. If James gives up James will stop visiting him, stop the terrible exquisite torture that he seems determined to inflict on Godfrey repeatedly. But also, and almost more importantly, James will stop trying to destroy himself. Godfrey won't have to read reports of James Delaney's assassins, to hear of James Delaney's injuries, to have nightmares about James Delaney's death.

He's almost more afraid of Delaney's death than his own.

Lying like this he remembers how James's face looked; eyes closed, soft in sleep. He'd felt it tug, somewhere deep inside of him. Was there any other bed in London where James Delaney could rest so soundly, without watching his back, without listening for a knife between his shoulders? Godfrey feels a certain pride flutter in him and for a few seconds he lets himself fantasise that James visits him to feel safe, stays with him to feel loved, and lets Godfrey stroke his hand because it genuinely soothes him. If he concentrates hard, and squeezes his eyes so tight it hurts his head, he can convince himself that James Delaney truly loves him and only treats him so badly because he can't bare to let himself love.

Godfrey gives a short ugly laugh as that thought appears, opening his eyes and wiping them. He pushes himself up and shakes out the blankets, smoothing them down to remove any trace of James Delaney before his next caller. Those kind of thoughts lead to madness, a madness that he's pretty sure Delaney is trying to drag him down into. He picks up the glass and drains it, sweeping the money James left on the bedside table into his purse. He's a whore being blackmailed, nothing more.

The rumours are spreading; that James Delaney is living with his step-mother and sharing a bed with her, that James Delaney is buying whore's piss for depraved sexual practices, that James Delaney fucked his half-sister. Godfrey feels somehow he should be jealous of all these women that James Delaney is supposedly sleeping with, but all he can feel for them is a horrible, desperate pity.

Because Godfrey knows that if James Delaney went as far as to actually fuck him, he'd be completely and totally damned.

He wonders if Delaney knows that too.


End file.
